don't quite understand----"

"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making
myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself.
I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,--these occasionally
trouble me----"

She leaned forward and put her delicately gloved hand on his.

"Dear King David!" she murmured. "You are always so good!"

He took the little fingers in his own clasp and held them gently.

"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very
difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a
great sorrow for me,--a great disappointment. The question is the 'test'
I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"

"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat violently. He
was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would
surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can
answer it I will!"

"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her
hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently
at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an
audacious, impudent question, Lucy,--one that no man of my age ought to
ask any woman,--one that is likely to offend you very much!"

She withdrew her hand from his.

"Offend me?" and her eyes widened with a blank wonder. "What can it be?"

"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things
a man--an old man--could say to a young woman! Suppose,--it is only
supposition, remember,--suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to
marry me?"

A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,--she almost
laughed out her inward joy.

"I should accept you at once!" she said.

With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew
himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.

"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "_You!_--you would
actually marry me?"

She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful
beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with
eagerness.

"I would,--indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather
marry you than any man in the world!"

There was a moment's silence. Then--

"Why?" he asked.

The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was
unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover,
he kept his eyes so pertinaciously